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The game begins with an intro involving a mysterious cloud appearing over the Mushroom Kingdom and kidnapping Princess Peach; Mario then finds out from one of the Toads that Wario is behind all of this, and then sets himself of to rescue the Princess.

The gameplay is notable mostly for its' streamlined level design, awkward and somewhat-lacking physics, wonky hit detection and being the bare minimum for a Mario game. Mario controls similarly to his original games; A is used to run and B is used to jump. However, throwing fireballs is assigned to C instead of sharing the same button to run. The only power-ups are Super Mushrooms (although Mario doesn't grow bigger) and Fire Flowers. The only way to gain extra lives is through collecting 100 coins. Jumping is rather odd; while holding B increases your jump as expected, letting go causes you to automatically drop. Mario also doesn't abide by gravity; he instead jumps up at a specific speed and then falls at a faster speed. There's also no real friction accounted for when Mario stops walking or running; instead he'll keep walking/running for a bit if he's been moving for a while or will come to a complete stop if he's moved a short distance. Running acts more as a toggle and just increases Mario speed as he moves on the ground.
There are 22 levels total; 11 Egyptian-themed levels, 6 Aztec-themed levels and 5 arctic-themed levels. Some of the pipes will actually take you to an underground area and let you skip part of a level. Enemies-wise: you have your usual Goombas and Koopas. Piranha Plants (here, they're yellow and lack a stem) and the Flurries from Super Mario Bros. 2 also appear here but they function the same way as Goombas. Pile Driver Micro-Goombas also appear but instead of jumping, they remain stationary. Nipper Plants appear as well but functioning as how the original Piranha Plants did. The only new enemy is a white rhino-looking creature standing on its hind legs who acts the same way as Goombas.

The game is also infamous for stealing graphics and music from other sources which is usual for BMB. A lot of the sprites are taken from Super Mario All-Stars. Mario uses sprites from Mario and Wario instead. Most of the art for the intro, ending, and various screens were also taken from various sources and downgraded to fit the Mega Drive's graphic capabilities. Between each level, there's an intermission screen showing a Mario-relate picture involving the level's theme. The infamous continue screen is a pic called DeadMario created by Bibs that was originally posted on Pyxleyes. [1] The majority of the music was taken from the modules that come with Shiru's TFM Music Maker. The Continue and Game Over tracks were taken from Uwol: Quest for Money. (which Shiru also composed for) All those tracks are sped up and use slightly different instruments. Two of the tracks appear to be conversions of Amiga tracks (Nighthawk's cover of Super Mario Bros.'s overworld theme and Maktone's Class11.time flies) When you lose a life from an enemy, it plays a short sample of a conversion of the first boss battle theme from Chrono Trigger done by Chris Kelly. [2] When Mario falls, a sample of someone yelling plays instead.

In the ROM, Alone Coder's Ne4to Strrrrashnoe! can be found and is nowhere played in-game, even if the tracks are allowed to be randomized. It's unknown what its original purpose was.

In Gens and BizHawk, if you hit a brick block, the music will stop for one second, then become stuck on the spot before you hit the brick block unless you die. In Kega Fusion, you can hit a brick block without the music becoming stuck. (However, it does distort a bit)

Mario 4: A Space Odyssey (Mario 4: Космическая Одиссея [Kosmicheskaya Odisseya]) is a hack of Mario 3: Around the World also developed by BMB and published by KDS. While this game adds a few changes, it plays pretty much the same as Mario 3: Around the World did.

Mario 4: A Space Odyssey's plot has Mario and Luigi watching the stars until a star crashes onto the ground. An Alien creature (despite the intro depicting multiple Shroobs from Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, the text only states one) warns Mario and Luigi about an oncoming threat and that they need to stop the conqueror of galaxies with their army. (However, in-game there is no army that fight alongside Mario and Luigi).

There's only a total of sixteen levels in the game now. The enemies are completely different; being mostly a combination of Shy Guys, Bob-Ombs, Shroobs and giant versions of Goombas and Piranha Plants. There is a 2-player option where the second player plays as Luigi. You can also access a shop by pressing C when you pause. You can buy Super Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, continues and extra lives. After the final level, you fight what appears to be a giant, black version of Fawful's head.

The graphics this time around not only use graphics from Super Mario All-Stars but also Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and New Super Mario Bros. The continue and game over screen has become infamous for the same reasons as Mario 3: Around the World's and they're both stolen. The continue screen is based on a t-shirt design known as Game Over by Aaron Wiliams. [3] The game over screen is based on another t-shirt design called Original Gamer by Dann Matthews. [4] The music and sound effects remain the same.

An unused New Super Mario Bros. background shows up in one of the levels. This may have just been a result of taking rips of the backgrounds off of a site.

Many emulators have trouble with the shop; when you buy something from the shop, the game can end up locking on you. On some emulators, this can be fixed by switching the music banks on the options screen.